Jazz this week: Season's greetings from St. Louis Jazz Notes

With the Christmas holiday on Friday, it's a slow weekend for live music generally in St. Louis, but there are a couple of noteworthy shows happening early next week.

On Monday, bassist David Certain, who's played with Eddie Henderson, Gary Bartz and Little Jimmy Scott, leads a quartet at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, featuring drummer Stan Hale plus saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and trumpeter Rob Endicott of the Voodoo Blues Band. (Full disclosure: Yr. humble editor has gigged with both Certain and Hale in several different musical situations.)

On Tuesday, saxophonist Larry Johnson celebrates the release of his debut CD Circles with a "Notes from Home" performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Johnson will be supported by a cast of musicians including trumpeter Jim Manley, pianist Carolbeth True, singer Charlie Boehme, trombonist Jim Owens, guitarist Brian Simms, bassist Glen Smith and drummers David True and Joe Weber.

Elsewhere in town, Jazz at the Bistro and various other concert halls and clubs are dark this weekend, while Robbie's House of Jazz is open only on Saturday to host a private fundraising event.

However, there are still a few musical options over the weekend; the RFT's "A to Z" music blog did a post about bars that will be open for Christmas here that may be of some help. If you're wondering about a particular spot not mentioned there, your best bet may be simply to pick up the phone and call; please see the StLJN sidebar for links to local jazz venue websites.

StLJN will be on a reduced holiday posting schedule for the next couple of days, but it will be business as usual on Saturday with the weekly video post. Next week, there'll be something about New Year's Eve jazz in St. Louis, some end-of-year wrap-up posts, and, I hope, a bit of housekeeping & maintenance as well.

Until then, here's hoping that you are safe, warm and in good company this holiday weekend.

For information on more jazz and creative music events this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, available for viewing on the left sidebar, or by clicking here. Also, you can follow St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes and become a "fan" by signing up on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)